I visited our local Christian bookstore last weekend primarily to to pickup a copy of Larry Burkett’s Debt Free Living, as I had sold my previous copy accidentally in our most recent yard sale. As usual though, I can’t help but spend time looking at other books and checking out what is new. In doing so, I found Wealth & Wisdom by Greg Womack.

Wealth & Wisdom is a new book published in August of 2007, so the information is up to date and current. Wealth & Wisdom tells you how to manage your finances and make wise financial decisions by following biblical scripture found in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, and specifically the wisdom and financial advice from King Solomon.

I drive about 2 1/2 hours a day every weekday. As long as the traffic isn’t too bad, I really don’t mind it too much. The longest portion of driving is to and from work. My ride in is a time to wake up, begin getting my thoughts together for what the day holds and thinking through what I need to accomplish. I even spend time in prayer sometimes just talking to God. I guess it’s my quiet place (Mark 6:31). My drive home is more of a time to forget the events of the work day and transition from “manager mode” to “Dad mode” (although these two roles seem to have quite a bit in common).

I was talking to a co-worker the other about how my wife is really great about purchasing items at the right time. What I mean by this is she waits until items are out of season to buy them. For example, she purchased a pool for our kids (affiliate link) a few weeks back. Since summer is about over, pools have been significantly reduced in price. The pool she purchased is normally about $150.00, she got it on sale for $40.00.

Many items can be purchased at a great discount this way. End of season discounts are a great way to save money. Here’s a few tips to help you out:

This week has been incredibly busy for me. Work has been just nuts and football season for my oldest son is in full swing with 3 practices a week from 6pm-8pm. We are heading to the mountains for the long weekend and can’t wait to get away for a few days! I did manage to allocate some time to catch up on all of the various PF blogs. Here’s my article “gathering” for this week:

Getting out of debt is much harder than getting in debt. I know, I know that’s obvious right? Well sure it is. The problem is people don’t seem to think about it when they overspend, buy things they don’t need, and live for the moment.

We live in a “I deserve it now, therefore I’m getting it now” world. Living this way is not honoring God first with your wealth. Deuteronomy 8:17-19 says: “Otherwise, you may say in your heart, ‘My power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth.’ But you shall remember the LORD your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth…It shall come about if you ever forget the LORD your God and go after other godsand serve them and worship them, I testify against you today that you will surely perish“.

In the real world, I manage a group of software developers. Prior to managing, I was a software developer myself. Software developers for all intent and purpose are engineers. Engineers like to solve complex problems with complex and elegant solutions. Doing so is in our nature.

What is interesting though, is through the years I have found the complex solutions are not the best solutions. While they make for great research papers and graduate thesis, they aren’t easy to support, maintain or enhance. They make it difficult for people to learn, and thus training of new developers is difficult and time consuming. Complex solutions cost more money in the long term than simple solutions.

I was reflecting last night on how our lives have changed since we decided to get our finances under control. We strictly follow a budget, put as much money as we an towards paying off our debt and slashed our expenses. One thing in particular that I have done is to avoid temptation.

I intentionally avoid going to stores where I tend to spend money. Places like Best Buy, Circuit City, HHGregg, car dealerships, Auto Zone, etc. are all places where I am surrounded by temptation. It is extremely difficult for me to visit a place like this and not walk out with something.